A 26-year-old man convicted of assaulting a state trooper during a drunken-driving arrest last fall was sentenced Wednesday to more than four years behind bars.

Elijah Lee Knowles, of Akeley, Minn., was ordered by a Cass County judge to spend 56 months in prison and six years on probation, according to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. He also will have to pay $2,492 in restitution.

Early on an October morning, state trooper Darcy Gagnon stopped Knowles on Hwy. 34 about 5 miles east of Park Rapids.

She attempted to handcuff him after he failed field sobriety tests, but he grabbed her Taser and hit her several times on the head with it before putting it to her head and pulling the trigger. The safety prevented the Taser from firing.

Knowles then tried to reach her handgun, but couldn't. When police backup arrived, Knowles drove away at more than 110 miles per hour.

He was arrested after he attempted to ram two squad cars and crashed his car near Hwy. 46 and 200 Street.

"The sentence handed down by the court was necessary to hold Mr. Knowles accountable for this brutal attack on one of our troopers," Col. Kevin Daly, chief of the Minnesota State Patrol, said in a statement.

Knowles was found guilty of second-, third- and fourth-degree assault, disarming an officer, drunken driving, fleeing police and obstructing the legal process.

NICOLE NORFLEET